National Women's Soccer League and ESPN announce national broadcast agreement

The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and ESPN announced today a one-year agreement to broadcast nine NWSL games this year. As part of the agreement, ESPN2 will air three regular-season matches and all three NWSL playoff matches, which includes the two semifinal games on August 23 and 24, and the championship game on August 31.

"We are very excited to announce our new agreement with ESPN," NWSL Executive Director Cheryl Bailey said. "In the midst of our second season, we are striving to provide our fans with improved access to our league matches and airing our games on ESPN2 and ESPN3 will give us a broader platform to expose fans to the amazing caliber of women's soccer in the NWSL. We also hope to create new fans who will appreciate the amazing athletes and personalities in our league."

In addition, ESPN3 will also live stream three regular season NWSL games. Access to Live programming on the ESPN3 channel of multiscreen sports network is accessible online at WatchESPN.com on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through Xbox, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV.

It is available to more than 92 million households nationwide at no additional cost to fans with subscriptions to participating high speed internet or video service providers. The network is also available at no cost to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers, smartphones and tablets connected to on-campus educational and on-base military broadband and Wi-Fi networks.

"This agreement with the NWSL represents ESPN's continued commitment to soccer and to top level women's sports," said Scott Guglielmino, ESPN Senior Vice President, Programming and Acquisitions. "We are excited to showcase this new league and feature some of the best female soccer players in the world leading in to the 2015 FIFA World Cup."

Graham Hays will write a feature before every televised game for espnW.com, along with season predictions and breaking news throughout the season. In addition, espnW's Julie Foudy, a FIFA Women's World Cup champion in 1991 and 1999 and former captain of the U.S. Women's National Team, will conduct a post-game question-and-answer with the star of each game.